


How They Transform

by fineandwittie



Series: The Timeline of a Love Story [4]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Development, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slash, trigger warning: references to rape and sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4830995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander Waverly has been trying to disentangle Solo and Kuryakin from their respective agencies since the beginning and, two years in, he finally manages it. Now he's just got to tell the team.</p><p>He learns some interesting facts along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How They Transform

**Author's Note:**

> There may or may not be another section in this series. I can't seem to help myself.

It’s taken Alexander Waverly two years and more favors than he wants to contemplate, but he’s finally managed to steal away the CIA’s and the KGB’s best agents. He sits back in his office chair with a smile and thinks that it was worth it. He has four files open on his desk: three agents files and one team record. UNCLE is the best team he has and the best team he’s ever likely to have. He is still amazed the way Kuryakin and Solo managed to mesh so easily together after that horribly violent start they’d had. 

While he waits for the three agents to show up, he remembers the warnings he’d been given from their handlers. Oleg had explained that Kuryakin is violent, unpredictable, nearly uncontrollable and Alexander’d have to be very careful about how much freedom he gives Russia’s hulking bear. He had snorted. 

Sanders, on the other hand, was even less kind. He’d scoffed at Solo’s skills, claiming that he was little more than a whore and used his pretty face and sticky fingers to achieve any success he’d had as an agent. Sanders had implied some very distasteful things about his own methods of controlling his former agent. Anger, with a strongly protective edge to it, settles in Alexander’s stomach and he shakes his head. 

Seeing the agents as anything more than what they are is dangerous, but he can’t seem to help himself with these three. They’ve each had such a bleak life that it sparks something paternal in him that he hadn’t known existed. His wife would have been amazed. 

Before his thoughts can turn maudlin, there’s a light knock and the door swings wide. He narrows his eyes at the three agents in front of him. There is something different about their dynamic that he can’t pinpoint. Their success rate had increased recently, but he had thought that it was perhaps a seasonal thing. They always work better in summer. But no. There is something different here.

His gaze flicks between Solo and Teller, taking in the new proximity and he wonders. “Sit, please, agents. I’ve got some news.”

Solo takes the chair on the far left and Teller the far right, putting Kuryakin’s looming bulk in the center. Alexander wonders about this too. “I’ve been in contact with both the CIA and the KGB. This has been a relatively long time coming, I realize.” He pauses, taking in the suddenly blank coldness on Solo’s face. Kuryakin’s fingers are twitching, but it’s not his usual tic. They flex, reaching out toward…Solo. Alexander frowns. Teller looks like she might cry. “I’ve managed to convince both of them to give you to me permanently. Which means that you’re free to go wherever you like or to stay with UNCLE.”

Solo’s eyes close briefly before they snap open, complete shock written all across his face. “Excuse me, sir? I can’t have heard you right.”

Alexander eyes him for a moment, before smiling. “You heard right, Solo. You, especially, were difficult to free from your leash, but with enough favors.” He shrugs. “Anything is possible. You were only originally going to be given ten years to serve of your fifteen year sentence anyway. So I convinced Sanders of that. You’re free to go. I am not Sanders and I will never force you to do anything you don’t wish to do.”

Solo, who Alexander is expecting to look relieved at his implication, stiffens and flinches away from Kuryakin. Alexander looks at the Russian and sees that the twitching has turned to tapping. It looks very much like Kuryakin is going to have an episode. Alexander blinks in confusion. What on earth…?

“Illya…please don’t.” Solo’s voice is low and even, and more emotionally charged than Alexander has ever heard it. Alexander shied away from the begging tone in Solo’s voice.

“Napoleon…” Kuryakin’s voice is emptier than should be possible. When Kuryakin slips into Russian, Alexander isn’t sure whether it’s a reflex or whether it’s for privacy. He understands it regardless. “Is what he is implying true? Love, did…”

Alexander blinks at the endearment and thinks that that explains quite a bit.

Solo looks away from his partners, doesn’t meet Alexander’s eyes, which is a confession all on its own. “Please don’t ask me that, Illyusha…You…don’t want to know the answer.”

It’s Teller who finally confronts the issue, speaking bluntly and, surprisingly, in perfect Russian. “Solo, you once told me that you were worried that you’d be raped if you were sent to whatever hole they were planning to keep you in. Did you trade one abuse for another? What did Sanders do to you?”

Solo twitches, a full body motion, and suddenly he’s the same cocky, suave bastard that bumped into Alexander at that party. They’ve lost him and, a glance at the other two agents tells Alexander that they know it too.

Surprisingly, the next words out of Solo’s mouth are not evasion or, it seems, lies. “I have never been raped, Gaby. Whatever you’re imagining, that is not what happened. My story is my own. I will tell it or not, in my own time. This is not the place for this discussion, when Agent Waverly here speaks Russian.” His tone was mild, but pointed. 

Kuryakin goes pale and turns to stare at him, wide-eyed. Alexander smiles. “What you do when you are not working for this agency is your own business, Agent Kuryakin. Just…don’t bring it to work. I never want to see or hear about it ever again. And, for god’s sake, be careful. That is illegal in most of the world. Not that Solo cares about such a little thing as crime.” He keeps his tone light and a touch ironic. Solo smirks at him and he wonders about the note in Solo’s file: serial womanizer. Someone got that wrong or there is something very off about Solo. Why would a man who looks like Solo does and clearly enjoys bedding women, if his file is anything to go by, willing sleep with a man? Alexander shakes the thought away. It is none of his business what any of them do. Though…

He examines the three agents, trying to visualize their dynamic. Is this a French perversion? Are all three of them sleeping together? He eyes Teller for a moment and decides that no, this is a perversion that’s limited to the two men. Teller knows about it. Does not seem bothered by it. Alexander will never understand women.

Kuryakin’s breathing is back to normal and the tapping stopped at some point. “The KGB has released you as well. Your father has been dead for years, but I was concerned about the threat to your mother.” Solo looks sharply at Kuryakin, a frown twisting his normally handsome features. “I scrounged around for some unimportant prisoners and traded for her. She’s due to arrive in three days. We’ve set up and apartment for her, but you are welcome to move her wherever you like. Like Solo, you’re free to go, though I would not suggest going back behind the Iron Curtain. I can’t make any promises about what will happen if you do. Oleg was very displeased, but he realized that he couldn’t get you back voluntarily. Trying to kidnap their best agent when he is constantly in the presence of the CIA’s best agent was too much bother even to ensure your return.”

Kuryakin blinks at him and seems to shrink a little, but nods.

Alexander waits a beat and then asks the obvious question. “Well…will you stay?”

Solo snorts. Alexander glances at him with a raised eyebrow. “Of course, we’ll stay. Where else is there for us to go? And we couldn’t leave Gaby to the tender mercies of other agents. Not when we’ve only gotten her used to us.”

Teller rolls her eyes and leans behind Kuryakin to smack Solo on the head. The American laughs. Waverly sighs. Sometimes, he thinks, these men are the best of the best, focused and lethal in the field. Other times, they are like children. Teller has the patience of a saint to put up with them as much as she does. 

And a cast iron stomach. Alexander wonders how she found out that her partners were both bent. How she reacted to it. He dismisses the thought.

“Good. I take it Agent Kuryakin has no problem with you speaking for him?” Kuryakin flushes faintly and shakes his head. “Well then, as soon as your mother gets settled, I want the three of you back in here for your next assignment. So, five days from now. Until then, figure out how to…be more discrete with this.” He waves a vague hand at the two men. “And you, Agent Teller, might learn to be more aware of the skills of those around you. You too Kuryakin. Solo, how did you know I speak Russian?”

Solo’s mouth smiles, but his eyes are frigid. “We are normally very, very discrete, sir. I hope you will allow that this…was a rather unusual situation. And it’s in your file.”

Alexander frowns and glances at the filing cabinet to his right. “How did you…?”

Solo laughs, high and full of disdain. “I am, first and foremost, a thief. I stole it. My…relationship with Illya will prove no more problematic than your opium addiction. Sir.”

Alexander blinks and a cold shiver goes down his spine. He is suddenly and forcibly reminded that this man is the best the CIA had, an organization which is known for its determination, tenacity, and ruthlessness. He is even more forcibly reminded that Solo was also a sergeant in the US Army and that he served in both World War Two and Korea. 

There is very little, Solo’s eyes seem to say, that Solo would not do for the man at his side. Alexander has a brief image of fire erupting from the water and the small curl of Solo’s lip as he told a woman about to die that her husband was a coward who had traded her life for his own. A coward who had died anyway. 

Alexander swallows. “I am quite sure that it will be even less of a problem than that, and I can assure you that my…opium habits are a thing long passed. I have every confidence in you all.” He closes the folders in front of him. “I will see you all in five days.”

Solo is smiling when he stands, a real one that warms his eyes. Alexander does not trust it. He thinks that perhaps of the two men, Solo is actually the most dangerous. Kuryakin is like a blunt instrument. He is a bomb. Predictable and easy to see coming. Solo is more like…a cottonmouth viper or a poisonous gas. You never see him coming and he’ll kill in the most painful way possible, smiling all the while.

Alexander is quite pleased to have him on the team. He thinks perhaps that having Solo romantically involved with his partner is actually a good thing. Gives the man an anchor to UNCLE. Insurance that Solo won’t just disappear someday.

Yes, Alexander thinks, this is good. With this, they’ll be fine. As long as they can hide it well enough, they’ll be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't seem to help myself. I have been converted to a fan of Whump!Napoleon. I'm so sorry.


End file.
